


Spirit in the Sky

by castironbaku



Series: An Awesome Mix of HideKane [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Feels, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Oneshot, Shironeki - Freeform, hidekane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castironbaku/pseuds/castironbaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kaneki seriously decides to go home with Hide because come on, how can he not.<br/>A.K.A. Yet another feels-y alternate ending to TG.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirit in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know. I really don’t know. It just happened and I… I don’t know! It’s not even that related to the song, gdi. This is so pathetically written, I make myself sad. It’s just the feels, guys. I AM IN IT FOR THE FEELS.

“ _Yowch!_ ” Hide yelps, jumping as the cotton swab drenched in antiseptic brushes against one of the cuts and scrapes running down his arm. Kaneki looks up and scowls at him.

“What in the hell were you doing down there anyway?” he demands sharply, dabbing at the other wounds and trying in vain not to hurt his friend any further. “You could’ve died! I could’ve killed you. Dammit, Hide, I could have _eaten_ you whole.”

“But you didn’t,” the blond says smilingly. “I’m still breathing and you’re still fussing like an old nanny.”

Kaneki’s eye twitches and he drives the cotton swab into a wound much harder than he’s supposed to, making Hide flinch with a cry of, “ _Ow!_ ”

Serves him right. This is a conversation they have been having since getting out of the sewers and Kaneki swears nothing is getting through to his blond idiot of a best friend. He’s already wrapped the worst of the wounds—bites on shoulders and bits taken off the stomach and legs… Ugh. How Hide is even managing the smiles that he can is beyond Kaneki’s understanding. He stands up, nausea making his head spin. His barely healed stomach churns and pain throbs around his midsection.

“’Neki,” Hide says, catching him by the sleeve of his ruined bodysuit. “I’m fine. Really, I am. It’s just a few bites, right? That was all you took. Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’ve had much, _much_ worse from soccer practice back in high school, remember?”

Spinning on his heel and ignoring the pangs of pain and faint hunger intermingling in his stomach, Kaneki aims an angry glare at Hide. “ _You_ weren’t supposed to be down there,” he says, fuming and jabbing a finger in the blond’s face. “ _You_ were supposed to be at home. The whole ward is under fucking _lockdown_. What the _hell_ did you think you were doing down there? Huh? Did you have a suicide wish?”

“No, I had the overwhelming desire to see my best friend,” Hide replies hotly. “I had the means. I had the knowledge. I was on location. All I had to do was find you.”

“Why the _fuck_ would you do that? Hide, you could have _died_.”

“But I didn’t,” he says stubbornly. “And don’t talk like I’m stupid, ‘Neki. I knew the risks. I knew all that and yet I _still_ went looking for you. That’s why I’ve been looking for you this past year! That should tell you something.” Brown eyes meet gray ones and hold answers that Kaneki doesn’t want to admit because if he does, then everything— _everything_ will become pointless.

“What would I have done if you died, Hide?” he asks quietly. “Do you know what I would’ve done?”

Hide meets his gaze levelly. “I do,” he says coolly. “I do know. That’s why I’m still here, Kaneki. I knew what you would do, so I did my best to stay alive out there until I found you.”

“And if I had killed you? If _I_ were the one who ended everything, if _I_ were the one who stopped your heart and ate your brains out, do you know what kind of a life I would have had to live from then on? Well, do you?”

At least the bleached blond has the tact to keep quiet. It’s of little comfort to Kaneki, but it gives him the opportunity to drive a point home.

“It would have been _hell_ , Hide,” he says finally, like a breath exhaled after hours, months, years of holding it in. He sits back down and presses the cotton swab back onto Hide’s arm. “Touka once told me that trying to ignore hunger when you’re a Ghoul is like a living hell. I believed her, once. But later on, that changed.” He sets down the cotton swab and takes up a roll of bandages. “I know now, for a fact, that no hell on earth or below it would compare to a life without you.”

Long white strips wrap around Hide’s arm. Up, down, around. Up, down, around. Kaneki tries to lose himself in the pattern because if he doesn’t, he knows he might slip on that jagged outcropping and fall into the dark, roiling sea below.

It’s when a single drop of something hot on his hand jolts him out of his stupor that he forgets himself. Hide’s cheeks are soaked and his shoulders are trembling in silent sobs. Eyes widening, Kaneki freezes and for a minute, he has no idea what he’s supposed to do.

“I…” Hide begins, swiping a finger under his dripping nose. “You know…” He looks up at Kaneki and musters a fucking _smile_ underneath those tears. “That’s how I’ve felt since you disappeared from mine.”

It’s as good as taking a sledgehammer and swinging it downward, shattering Kaneki’s heart into a million tiny shards of feelings and memories that have been kept in the dark for too long. His lips quiver and he throws his arms around Hide as he lets the tears that blur his vision come cascading down his face like a couple of sorry little waterfalls.

“Why d-did you l-leave, Kaneki?” Hide blubbers, burying his face into Kaneki’s shoulder. “W-Why couldn’t y-you have to… told me?”

“I was scared you’d hate me,” Kaneki said thickly through tears of his own. “I thought you’d be scared of me, reject me, call me a… a monster.”

“I’d _never_ do that!” Hide half-bawls, half-yells. “G-God _damn_ you, Kaneki, I would’ve—would’ve been making stupid jokes about you eating girls or s-something. I would’ve done everything I c-could to hide you from the fucking CCG. I would’ve _protected_ you.”

“I wanted to protect _you_ ,” Kaneki snaps.

“From w-what?”

“From _me_! I almost ate you after Nishiki tried to… I would have… I could have… I didn’t want to put either of us… in that sort of position ever again.”

“You s-saved me back then,” Hide argues. “I knew you would—would never do anything to hurt me. Never.”

“You’re crazy,” Kaneki says, shaking his head. “You’re downright nuts, trusting a Ghoul not to eat you when he’s half-starved to death.”

“Not when said Ghoul is my best friend, Ken Kaneki,” Hide laughs, though it sounds more like a wheeze. He pauses and Kaneki feels fingers in his hair. “I don’t know everything that’s happened to you,” he says softly. “But this is part of it, isn’t it?”

Kaneki doesn’t move from where he is and keeps holding onto Hide as tightly as he can without squeezing too hard on those bandaged wounds. “It is,” he says, memories flashing in his head faster than he can block them out.

“What… happened?”

He nods and tries a Hide-type of thing. “Nothing major,” he says jokingly. “Just some mental and physical torture, is all…” His voice breaks slightly, and he closes his eyes, knowing that the memories—the _nightmares_ —are far too fresh, even after months of freedom, to downplay that easily. Hide’s arms wrap around him at last.

“Kaneki,” he says. “Oh, God, Kaneki… I’m so sorry…”

“What for? You couldn’t have done anything. Even if you had come… He would have killed you in front of me.” Kaneki stiffens at the thought that threatens to choke the life out of him. Worse than any torture Jason could have thought up back then. “Better me than you.”

Hide pulls him into a tighter embrace. “Don’t say that, ‘Neki,” he whispers fiercely. “Don’t you _ever_ say that again.”

The words tickle Kaneki’s brain, easing out a memory from their childhood. A vague one of him crying and Hide hugging him tightly in the shadows of an old Shinto temple. He remembers wishing he could join his mother in Heaven, but Hide had said that exact same thing: _Don’t you ever say that again._ Like the child he was in that memory, Kaneki tucks himself into Hide’s arms.

“Okay,” he says meekly.

Hide tries not to wince, but Kaneki notices and jumps backward, out of the warm comfort of their embrace. He stammers out apologies and gets back to wrapping up Hide’s arms with bandages. Once he’s finished with that, he ducks into the kitchen to grab some tissues and hands a few to Hide. They spend the better half of the next ten minutes blowing their noses and laughing at how stupid they sound.

When things have calmed down somewhat, Hide asks the question that’s been weighing on Kaneki’s mind for some time: “Now what?”

Kaneki sighs and cracks a knuckle. “I have to find the others,” he says. “I have a feeling Yomo and Touka, maybe even Hinami, are together somewhere, waiting things out. The manager isn’t the type to put Touka and Hinami on the forefront and he also isn’t the type to let them hide alone. Koma and Irimi, I saw fighting out there. I managed to get them out, but I have no idea what’s happened to them since. Then there’s the manager himself…”

He trails off, guilt gnawing away mercilessly at his heart. It’s his fault, after all. His fault that the CCG set their sights on the innocent café and its staff. He rubs the sides of his face with his hands, like he feels it’ll distract him from the guilt. He feels Hide place a hand on his shoulder. It’s warm and reassuring.

“I’ll help you find them,” he says. “I swear I won’t let you do this alone anymore.”

Kaneki looks at him, hands dropping to his lap. “It’ll be dangerous,” he says slowly. “I’ll be butting heads with the CCG again. Aogiri, too. You’re part of the CCG now. You can’t just pull out and stick with me.”

“I know that. But what if I can stay there, get you info from the inside? I still want to see you, ‘Neki,” he persists. “I won’t let you go off on your own again. Not now that I’ve found you. Say whatever you want to say but I’m not letting go of you. I’m really not.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Clingy, much?” Kaneki quips, eliciting a wide smile from the blond. “Tomorrow, you’ll go back to the CCG and what’ll you say?”

“‘Dear officers,’” Hide says, mimicking a typical damsel-in-distress voice, “‘I am so sorry but I was attacked by one of those Ghouls and had to pull back of my own volition and set up shop at a civilian’s place to patch up—I told them nothing of the situation, of course. I’m a newbie at these conflict things, you see, and I guess my ego got ahead of me and I tried my hand at something I couldn’t handle.’”

Kaneki nods. “Then I’ll start doing some digging on Yomo, Hinami, and Touka’s whereabouts before anything else.”

“Because the manager and the others might very well be handcuffed in Cochlea by now,” the blond says and Kaneki tries not to ask him how he even _knows_ that place.

“I’ll probably dye my hair or something.” Of course. Why has the thought only occurred to him now? “Maybe I’ll go back to black again.”

Hide shakes his head. “Somebody will recognize you,” he says. “Some CCG officers are on your trail because of me and I _think_ one or two of them have an idea what you are.”

Kaneki hums, running his tongue over the backs of his teeth. “I’ll think about it,” he decides. “Anyway, you’ll go home, show up in front of your parents and assure them you’re alright. We meet back here two days after tomorrow, at twelve sharp. Then we can plan our next move from there.”

The bleached blond whistles. “This in-control version of you is _very_ nice, ‘Neki.”

“So are the occasional man-eating urges and tentacles from hell,” he snorts.

“Rebellious attitude and dry humor,” Hide adds, nodding. “Kind of makes me miss the old you, though. When you were all chubby cheeks and blushing every five seconds.”

Kaneki barely refrains from punching him in the shoulder by getting up. “You should get some rest,” he says. “I’ll wake you up tomorrow.” He catches Hide staring at him and sighs. “What now?”

The bleached blond holds his arms out. “Well, I can’t walk _all the way_ to your bed,” he gripes. “I can’t even walk without supporting myself.” Which is true, in fairness. “C’mon, my prince, carry me. I know you have superhuman strength now.”

“I’m just as injured,” Kaneki mutters, but he does oblige Hide’s request, because he is of course, the reason why the bleached blond can’t walk very far. He carries Hide bridal style for about ten seconds and gently lowers him onto the bed sheets. They were dusty when he and Hide had first come in, but after a bit of a pat-down, they are more or less good as new.

Hide settles into the bed, sighing. He looks up at Kaneki and smiles yet again. “D’you remember what I said about rabbits dying of loneliness, ‘Neki?”

“I do.”

“It’s going to be a hard night.” Brown eyes peer at him. “And you and I both know it won’t be the last one.”

Kaneki swallows the lump forming in his throat. “You’d… trust me? To sleep next to you?”

“‘Neki, you talk like you’d have a knife to my back the whole time.”

“Technically…”

“Ah, forget it. Just come on over here and stay beside me.”

Hide scoots over, grimacing at the pain he likely feels from the movement, making room for Kaneki in the narrow bed. Kaneki hesitates for only a moment, but when is this ever going to happen ever again? He makes himself comfortable (or as comfortable as he can be) next to Hide. The blond looks over at him with a sideways grin.

“It’s like the old days, when we were kids, huh?” he says.

“Yeah, I s’pose…” _Unless you count that I’ve literally tried to eat you and that I’ve only just healed from a mortal injury…_

Out of the corner of his vision, he sees Hide’s eyes fluttering shut. They’re enveloped in silence for several long moments and all they can hear is each other’s breathing in the still quiet of a room that’s been abandoned for months.

“Don’t leave again, Kaneki,” Hide says in a voice so soft, Kaneki doesn’t know if he’s supposed to hear it. “Don’t leave me alone again. I… can handle a thousand injuries, if you’ll stay with me. But I can’t handle you leaving like that again.”

Knowing it’s far too much to promise but also just what he owes Hide, he’s not sure what he’s meant to say. An empty promise, or a silence that can go both ways? Neither of them know what the next morning might bring. Even if Hide goes limping into a CCG complex with a convincing enough story, neither of them know exactly what will happen after that. Kaneki doesn’t know when someone might recognize him if he goes out. Stark white hair isn’t exactly forgettable.

So what can he say but, “I can’t promise that I won’t leave you, Hide.”

The breath catches in his best friend’s throat and Kaneki slides his hand into those trembling fingers. They lace around his own and grasp him tightly, like he’ll disappear at any moment.

“But I _can_ promise that I’ll do everything in my power to come back to you,” he says. “I’ll fight tooth and nail to get back to you. Every time. No matter where I am or where I will be, I’ll protect you and I’ll come home. I promise, Hide. I promise I’ll always come home to you.”

The trembling stops and that brief moment of weakness turns into a memory that only the two of them share. When Kaneki is sure Hide has fallen asleep, he gently pulls his hand out of the blond’s grip and brushes the hair from his face in a touch that you can call tender. Then he leans down, lower and lower, until his lips hover a single hair’s breadth away from Hide’s. Their breaths are intertwining like their fingers were earlier.

But even if he wants to, Kaneki can’t do it. It’s not fair, and with Hide, he only ever wants to play fair. He lies back down and takes Hide’s hand in his again. It doesn’t take long for exhaustion to carry him off into unconsciousness and he won’t ever know just how good Hide is at pretending he’s asleep. He won’t ever be privy to the blush that explodes like wildfire across those cheeks and the soft voice that murmurs, “You should’ve just done it, ‘Neki. You should’ve just done it.”

The two of them may not have fallen asleep at the same time and for the same reason, but if there’s one thing they do share that night, it’s the exact same dream.

A dream of two best friends, laughing by the riverside, promising each other a forever that eventually has its own troubles. Then, slowly,

slowly,

slowly,

a kiss that seals it all and sets it in stone.

**Author's Note:**

> "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum, 1969


End file.
